Faction - Recongregators
"The future of mankind is not something that is bought with mouthed reverence to the pas. The past future is bough with violence and the execution of all that we hold most scared" -Xaius Orel, The dictates of the future A revolutionary faction of Radicalism within the Inquisition, the Recongregators believe that imperial society has reached a dead end of stagnation decay which has robbed mankind of the means and of the will to survive in a predatory universe. There is only one solution to such a danger, they believe: to tear down the calcified monoliths of Imperial power and make them anew so that mankind can survive. The ancient bureaucracies, the forms of rules and governance. and the thinning blood of the ruling elite all are irretrievable and must be replaced by those not fettered by tradition but emboldened to make mankind's future anew. The price For such change is terrible. but for an Inquisitor of the Recongregator philosophy. it is a price that must be paid lest all fall into darkness and slow ruin. THE FUTURE REBORN Inquisitors who cleave to the Recongregator vein of radicalism have a different philosophy on what threatens the lmperium and must employ unique methods in pursuit of their ends. Their principle aim is to save the lmperium, not from what threatens today. but from the oblivion into which it is blindly stumbling as a society. To Recongregators. the threats that their fellow Inquisitors see as most dangerous are lesser when compared to the greater danger of being crippled by stagnation and choked by mouthed tradition. Because stagnation of the lmperium is the paramount threat to mankind. Recongregators must adopt methods that are vile heresies to their Puritan peers. If the lmperium will not heal itself of its wasting sickness, then those with vision. strength. and power must provide the medicine-no matter how bitter it might be. THE NECESSITY OF CHANGE The core belief that informs all Recongregator lnquisitors is that the Imperium, which they are bound to defend. has become corrupt and is decaying. The great pillars of authority and order which once supported the untold glories of mankind no longer serve any purpose other than to pull humanity into a future of slow death and wasting ruin. The domain of the God Emperor persists in spite of the monolithic organisations and vacillating elite. who believe that they are serving and protecting that which they are in fact strangling. Time is running out, the hope of the future slipping away like the hand of a drowning man beneath the surging water. If the lmperium is allowed to continue as it is, it will stagnate to the point where it will fall apart-and then circling predators will come to feast. and mankind will be nothing but burnt flesh and blackened bones. To Recongregator lnquisitors. there is only one choice: the Imperium must be changed. That change may not be accepted, understood, or desired. but it must happen lest all be lost. Those who rule mankind with the worn wisdom of the past must be replaced by those with those of vision and fresh ideals The great dead structures of power and control. perpetuating only stagnation and decline. must be torn apart and made anew. The Future can only be saved by the Radical and will only be destroyed by the conventions of the present. Ensuring that change will come is the scared duty of Recongregators, for the domain and subjects of the God- Emperor of mankind must be saved. All that threatens the lmperium pales in significance when compared to the stagnation that pervades the Imperium and the minds of its servants. This torpor makes loyal citizens. soldiers, and rulers vulnerable to the corrupting whispers of the warp and the lies of the alien. This vulnerability will only deepen with time until mankind can no longer raise its wasted limbs to defend itself. To the Recongregators. the persecutions of all other threats are subservient to promoting and enabling change amongst the mind and body of the Imperium. This is not to say that Recongregators are unconcerned by the malign pecdations of daemons or the conspiracies of xenos, only that they have a higher calling and a different rod by which to measure menace. The concerns of Recongregators are focused inwards to the body of the lmperium, and unless an action in some way changes the status quo, it is a lesser concern. Such things can be left to the attention and energies of more mundane minds; Recongregators can have no time For anything that does not work to change the doomed direction of mankind. Hope is running through their fingers like sand, and the time to act is now. THE METHODOLOGY OF REBIRTH The methods used by Recongregators to affect change in the body Imperium falls between a number of poles through which an Inquisitor and his agents steer according to their own beliefs and the requirements of their endeavours. The pace at which change is affected. where it is affected, and with what force determines the tactics employed by Acolytes who serve a Recongregator, as well as the nature of those Acolytes. CHANGE TO WHOLE SOCIETY OR REPLACE THOSE WHO RULE Changing the politics, factionalism. bureaucracy, and immense edifices of the lmperium can be effected by changing those who govern and control those structures, or by removing the mechanisms that support and enable those structures to exist.,The sluggish structures of the lmperium pervade every part of society. The monoliths of stagnant tradition exist in a do symbiosis with the men and women who give them support To some Recon gregators. the most effective method of change is to focus on the leaders and governors of the Imperium; by changing them, these Recongregatorscan change the hand that steers mankind into the future. Others prefer to effect wider change, which then makes the structures and ideas of the past untenable. Feudal worlds within the lmperium are often subject to the attentions of Recongregator manipulation. A feudal world governed by an established line of monarchs and noble vassals, ruling over peasants who work with primitive tools, can be destabilised by changing the ruler or by changing those he rules. A Recongrcgator who favours change from the top down would work to replace the established monarch of a feudal world with a bold monarch who wants to pull the world up out of primitive tradition. An equally profound change could be made to the same feudal world by introducing and spreading unconventional ideas amongst its population. Off-world technology that breaks the need to work by hand, weapons that remove the ability of the nobility to enforcer their rule, or the idea that the nobility are not more worthy: by birth can all cause the traditional rule of a feudal become untenable and change to become a necessity. SUDDEN OR GRADUAL CHANGE Transformation can come gradually, with existing authority being slowly undermined, its key figures discredited and its pillars of support changed by degrees until they no longer resemble what they once were. At the other extreme is very rapid change effected by the abrupt removal of a ruling figure or body or the shock of discrediting of convention or custom. Gradual change has the advantage of being less likely to cause reaction to prevent it. as well as minimising any unfortunate side effects. such as destroying what they were trying to change. The faster the change. of course. the more likely it will necessitate violence and rebellion. Faced with a world that has an established method of governance lasting millennia, two Recongregators may approach the same end at very different paces. Those who favour slow change might slowly cripple the economic power of ruling elites through sabotaging production of tithed materials or sponsoring internecine strife and vendetta. They might isolate them politically by bribing or blackmailing their political allies. both on- and off-world. A campaign of whispers that paint the established rulers as laughable or indecisive might then open the door for a new set of rulers to be established and supported with the backing of all involved. Alternatively. those servants of the Recongregator doctrine who favour swift change might plant damning evidence of deep heretical practice amongst the ruling elite and let the iron hand of Imperial authority sweep away millennia of established rule with ruthless efliciency. BLUNT OR SUBTLE MANIPULATION In the end. almost all Recongregator endeavours usually necessitate violence to some degree. whether it is assassination, rebellion, sabotage, threat, or insurgency. The question is whether violence is used to force circumstances or to guide them. The blunt use of manipulation takes a stable situation and enforces change brutally: creating and arming rebellious factions, killing planetary commanders. and effecting coups d’état. Subtle manipulation takes the opportunities offered and enhances certain aspects to achieve the desired end: creating the circumstances for rebellion or dissent and provoking a tide of rebellion and change. Of course. the most effective operators amongst Recongregators use both blunt and subtle manipulation to create an unstoppable force of violent change. In planning the reconfiguration of power in a stable subsector, a Recongregator who favours subtle manipulation in the application of violence may introduce an exotic bio- toxin to the subsector's agri-world, causing food shortages in the hives fed by the agri-world. When food riots begin. covert Acolytes infiltrate the riots and instigate an attack against an enforcer stronghold, triggering a brutal response that fans the flames of insurgency higher-all the while isolating the subsector governor and truncating his ability to supply his tithe and keep order. A minor noble, hailed as a hero. would then emerge to broker a deal with the rioters. and together with emerging allies in the mercantile elite across the rises overnight to the seat of subsector governor. l approach would be to fund and arm a rebellion against Imperial rule on the subsector’s ruling world. The subsector governor is then horrifically assassinated and carefully placed elements in the military step in to restore order. RECONGREGATORS WITHIN THE HOLY ORDOS The Recongregator creed is popular with many Inquisitors who look to its doctrines as providing potential answers and even hope for the lmperium’s future. As a result, the Rccongregator creed is more widely and openly debated within the Inquisition than most. This fact serves in part to mask the secret activities of those who dedicate their careers and activities fully to the Rccongregator creed, whose embrace of revolution and heresy in their fight for humanity’s future would mark them as targets for zealous factions within the Inquisition. Given their concern with the internal workings of the Imperium. many Recongrcgators are part of the Ordo Hereticus. This is not only because it makes them ideally placed to discover individuals, organisations, and circumstances that might be open to their manipulation, but also many who have spent their lives uncovering weakness and corruption have their perception changed to the point where they are in accordance with Recongrcgator philosophy. A significant portion of Recongregators owe no allegiance to any single Ordo, a fact that is unsurprising given the all-consuming nature of most Recongregator concerns and designs. Unfettered by being focused on one of the supposed great threats to mankind, these independent lnquisitors concentrate their effort on what they see as the true threat: stagnation and decline. Some within the Ordo Malleus follow Recongregator doctrines, and indeed some come to them after decades of seeing the so called pillars of the Imperium eaten from within by daemonic influence and the temptations of Chaos. A daemonhunter who Follows the Recongregator philosophy may find individuals of great potential amongst those who resist the influences of malefic cults or rise against the daemonically influence tyrant. Of all the three great Ordos, the Ordo Xenos is the one least populated by Recongregators- though there are always a few drawn by the possibility of how the knowledge that xenos possess might be used to change the Imperium. A SECRET HISTORY Throughout the untold history of the Inquisition, the full impact of the Recongregator philosophy on the Imperium cannot be fully guessed. and if any beneath the Golden Throne know it in truth, they have never spoken it to another. The ways of the Rccongregator are those of deeds done in secret BY those who move behind a mist of secrecy and misdirection, and their actions are often only glimpsed when their plans have unintended consequences or go disastrously awry. So has it been for the life of the lmperium, and so it has been for the crucible of the Calixis Sector; indeed. it is likely that the puppetry of the Recongregators played its part in the birth of the sector and tampers with its fate even to this day. As with most strains of Radicalism or Puritanism within the Inquisition, the origins of the Recongregator philosophy remain unknown, although the term itself was in use at least as early as the Age of Apostasy At some point prior to this dark time of schism and blood, a pattern of thought and action by members of the Inquisition became established and consistent enough to be recognised and labelled. In all probability. there, never was a true founding of the Recongregator philosophy. which likely began as a slow gathering of ideas on importance of progress, Frustrations at stagnation, and dreams for the future. While there have been numerous concerted cells of self- declared Recongregators in operation. in both the past and present. even today Recongregators are only loosely bound by a coincidence of opinion and methodology. Indeed, many of those within the factions true number would not consider themselves such. no more than they would consider themselves heretics, and many follow their own path and are only branded as Recongregators by others in turn. Such fierce individualism, however, is the truest mark of the Recongregator, and has ever been since the first Inquisitor decided that mankind was sleep- walking into the abyss of the future. THE RISE OF DRUSUS Drusus-warrior, visionary. saint. whose rise to greatness is the story of the birth of the Calixis Sector itself. The history wrote in seminaries across the sector tells of how Drusus came to the untamed stars and nebulae that would become the Calixis Sector as a general in the stat? of Lord Militant Angevin in his crusade to carve a new domain of the lmperium of Mankind. The stories tell of how the enemies of the Emperor sent terrible assassins against him and dragged him down amongst the dead, but the Emperor, not accepting the death of his servant. destroyed his assailants and allowed Drusus to live again. His return from death remade Drusus, and from that day his story is one of triumphs. brilliance. and inspiration. in the decades that followed. Drusus threw the enemies of mankind back. took command of the crusade in the wake of the great Lord Militant Angevin’s death. and forged the Calixis Sector by his will. There is another story, a story that is known in part by few and in whole by none. It is a story bound with lies, so that even the great Lords of the Holy Ordos Calixis do not know where truth begins and lies end. They know only that it is made of both. of truth and lies bound into a knot. It is a story of an old man of weakening health and a mundane mind given command of a mighty Crusade by virtue of old blood and the favour of dusty traditions Under his failing will and weak strategies. millions died for little gain, and the forces of the Imperi um were shamed. It is said that among the Inquisition were those unwilling to see such blood split to no end, who watched the pitiful scrabbling of a so~called crusade dead stars and hateful worlds and decided that it Could not be allowed to continue. These watchers picked another to be the hand of destiny. one with the will and personal power to forge mankind’s future amongst the unforgiving reaches of space. These Recongregators, it is said, made a deal with the darkest of powers in order to meet their ends. If this is to be believed. it was they who saved Drusus and began the whisperings of his favour in the sight of the Emperor, they who wielded the knife that removed the old and made space for the new. The story says that the Calixis Sector was born of their will and that Drusus was a saint not of the Emperor's making but at the hands of hidden powers who charged a heavy price For their aid. Other respond that if the future needs be bought by a lie. then it is a small price to pay. THE MANIPULATION OF MALFI The hands of Recongregator agents are filthy with the stinking blood of dire mistakes that have been made in trying to wield Malfi as a tool for sector-wide change, but the factions manipulation of the bloodlines of the Malfian nobility remains its greatest work-and its most dire shame. The nobility of Malfi has always been rotten, ancient. and wicked long before the coming of the Angevin Crusade. Since the rise of Scintilla as the dominant capital of the sector. Malfi's nobility has become increasingly bitter and resentful. In this darkly brooding feud, the Recongregators saw an opportunity to create a force for change in a sector becoming too comfortable in its newly acquired stability. The key. they felt. was in the old blood of Malfi, a lineage and stock with a vast history of scions great and terrible down the years The Recongregators saw in these dynasties a tool they could use, and in doing so embraced a vile heresy long forbidden. With the aid of rogue elements within the Adeptus Mechanicus, a powerful Recongregator cell poisoned members of several noble families with gene-locked viral agents that would release their potential by augmenting makeup and sowing the seeds of the same in The intent of the manipulation was to breed a great line of chrismatic and powerful individuals who the sector away from a course doomed to stagnation. Matches between various infected bloodlines were engineered, and the resulting progeny were monitored over the years. Each generation was more changed than the last. but without warning, the experiment slipped from their grasp. Records were destroyed, adepts were killed, and those Inquisitors closest to the project were found dead or missing. The culprit responsible remains unknown to this day. As the years progressed, it became patently apparent that the results were. sadly, not what was intended. and too late the Recongregators began to realise the grave error of their choices. They had unwittingly committed a sin from humanity's ancient past. The products of Malfi‘s manipulated noble bloodlines were monstrous. Though they bore no marks of mutation. these men and women were near genius exemplars of cunning and viciousness and the guessed-at names of those noble lines most affected ring now with infamy: Sinderfel. Belasco, and Koba. None outside a few Inquisitors know of this secret atrocity. The Recongregators have taken great pains to cover up this sin over the years. and to combat the evil it has wrought, but even they cannot guess at how many have been born of the tainted blood of Malfi. THE RIDDLE OF THE LOGICIANS The Logicians are a conspiracy of so called progressives inspired by a proscribed doctrine outlined in the pages of In Defence of the Future: A Logical Discourse. An agglomeration of merchants, hereteks. and nobles, the Logicians hold the heretical belief in the importance of progress They pursue technology and forbidden knowledge in the hope of restoring mankind to the god-like state it once held in its lost “golden age.” The cult’s activities in the Calixis sector are centred on the hording of power and exploration of forbidden knowledge. The riddle of the Logicians is whether it is the Recongregator inspired creature it seems; even to those of the Recongregator doctrine do not know whether the Logicians are one of their untamed monsters loosed on a wounded galaxy. Logicians are a creation of a Recongregator’s scheming. The spread of the tech-cult through the dissemination of an idea rather than demagogues and fanatics is one favoured by Recongregators and seen in the corrupting proliferation of the text In Defence of the Future: A Logical Discourse. The overt doctrine of progress at any price and obtaining lost and forbidden technologies through dealing with hereteks. the most ambitious and mercenary of the Commercia, and the nobility all reek of Recongregator influence. The only problem with this view is that it the evidence bears little chance of it being true, no matter how much some in the faction might wish it so It is a riddle that grows all the more knotted when it is considered that even powerful Calixian Recongregator Inquisitors like Astrid Skane. Lucius Fulcio, and Lhor know of no influence their kind have exerted over the Logicians. Also the past actions of the heretical tech cult have proved to be both damaging to individual Recongregator plans. and served as an open case in point for rival factions of the perils of such revolutionary thinking. The solution to the riddle must therefore be either that the Logicians are the product of parallel evolution-a cult whose doctrine is something akin to an extreme form of the faction's own-or that it was once a cat's-paw grown to a power and life of its own. Some feel at the Logicians are perhaps the product of some unseen ind unknown Recongregator plan of unparalleled subtlety, although others in the faction condemn this theory as no more than dangerous hubris. CURRENT CONSPIRANCIES " you spit on me and call me mutant, twist, freaks and what of it! have i not strong arms to serve the emperor, have i not heart that beat, a mind that wills have i not soul he gave me, pure and clean beneath this rough flesh? Insult me and my death before him i shall go, loyal servant of the throne with his enemy's blood on my hands!" -- "Sergeant" Urak ironback, 17th penal legion, leader of the forlon hope at the battle of smeltery complex gamma, the tranch war The nature of the Recongregator philosophy spawns endless plots and endeavours, and the presence of a number of powerful Recongregators in the Calixis Sector means that it teeth: with manipulations and grand designs of change, many of which are inevitably stymied by inertia or thwarted by the machinations of other power groups. Chief amongst the concems of Calixian Recongregators is the fate of the seat of Imperial power on Scintilla. and stalwart Recongregators thwart the activities and dominance there of their arch-rivals of the Amalathian faction. THE LUCID CONCERN The chief focus of most Recongregators in the Calixis Slecitorg is Scintilla, nexus of governance and focus of the power and traditions of the Imperial rule in the sector. By their nature. Recongregators tend towards working alone without- coordination with like minded peers, but the concentration of tradition and power draws the attention of Recongregators like insects to a naked flame. They devote special attention to the infiltration of the Lucid Court and the circles of influence around Sector Governor Marius I-lax. As the embodiment of Imperial authority in the sector, Hax is a disastrous ruler from the perspective of Recongregators, being both highly conventional and obsessed with the maintenance of order and Imperial tradition. The fact that Hax’s authoritarian streak and reasoned loathing of change has seemed to drift into paranoia and despotism is of critical concern. Desperate operations to destabilise Hax's power base amongst the planetary defences and enforcer forces have so far proved fruitless, while the sphere of influence around the Lord Sector has proved impenetrable to infiltration. A number of Recongregators are becoming increasingly desperate to loose Hax’s stagnating grip on the sector and have banded into a cell known to its hidden membership as the Lucid Concern. Though they have yet to determine a course of direct action. the Lucid Concern is united in the absolute belief that the longer Hax's rule is allowed to calcify into immobility, the more extreme the solutions that can and should be contemplated to end it. So far. the group has been held back by the fear of accidentally destabilising the entire sector in the process. THE WAR WITHIN The war fought against the stabilising influence ofAmalathian lnquisitors has been waged in the Calixis Sector since the sector was founded. It has been a long and bitter struggle in which the Amalathians have the upper hand at present. The conventional and change-resistant rule of Sector Governor Hair and the relative stability of Imperial rule throughout the sector has smothered the potential for change. While many Rccongregators focus on breaking Hax's power base, others have focused on areas distant from Scintilla’s influence. A key secret battlefield between agents of Recongregator Inquisitors and servants of their Amalathian rivals is the feudal world of Acreage. Lone agents and hidden Acolyte cells have thoroughly infiltrated the populace and slowly begun to spread new ideas. With the ground laid, they have begun to smuggle technology and weapons into the hands a of elements resistant to the rule of the high king. In return for these manipulations, enforcement cadres trained by Amalathian Acolytes root out sympathisers of the new ideals and drag away rebellious elements-while the high king is watched over by bodyguards sent by Amalathianswithin the Ordos Calixis. Unknown to the Amalathians, though, is the fact that among their Acolytes in the lting’s court are few who wait the command of their Recongregatorimasters to remove the barriers to change and let the transformation Acreage begin. THE RECONGREGATORS AND OTHER INQUISTORIAL FACTIONS The philosophy and methodology of Recongregators aligns with and conflicts with those of many other factions within the Inquisition. Most obviously, the group's opposition to stagnation and the belief that the lmperium is being strangled by blind tradition conflicts in every point with the Puritan Amalathian faction. So deep is this rift that the two factions fight a constant invisible war of influence. a war that often breaks out into bloody vendetta and rivalry. The Inquisition's powers-that-be are often forced to intervene to keep the damage at a minimum. The Libricar, that secret Radical spawning of Amalathian obsession, views Recongregators and their agents as targets to be eliminated at all costs and counts themselves as the most implacable of the faction's enemies. The warmongering activities of Istvaanians. on the other hand. and their creed of strength through conflict, can align with the rebellious plots of a Recongregator. But beyond the use of anti-Imperial organisations, violence. and destabilisation to achieve their ends, the two factions have a fundamental difference: Recongregators want to change the current order and see it replaced by something new, while lstvaanians wish to unleash mayhem with little thought of what is to come- as long as it is stronger than what came before. As a result. many Recongregators see the lstvaanians as dangerous loose cannons and are just as likely to confront them as to make common cause. The forbidden tools of the Xanthite may lure some Recongregators. but many Inquisitors of the Rccongrcgator philosophy will view most individual Xanthites as vile heretics. Malevelolent Xanthitc splinter factions such as the Phaenonites consider the Recongregators‘ preoccupations petty and inconsequential compared to their own. Of course, fanatics who cleave to the Monodominant or Oblationist creeds see the Recongregators as unredeemable heretics and arch-traitors whose only fitting reward can be pain and death. ACOLYTES OF THE RECONGREGATORS The Acolyte cadres that serve Recongregator lnquisitors are usually a collection of demagogues. assassins. manipulators, agitators, criminal fixers. ta mc insurgents, and infiltrators. Those drawn from the Adeptus Arbites, Imperial Guard, or Adeptus Mechanicus are often used to infiltrate Imperial organisations during an operation. allowing the Recongregators to play both sides against each other. The operations of these Acolytes are often complex and require them to be capable of making imaginative decisions without recourse to their master. Unsurprisingly, Recongregator Acolytes are usually highly independent operators encouraged to think and make decisions for themselves-that, after all, is the Recongregator operations are usually covert, to the extent that even a hint of Inquisitorial involvement would compromise their mission and undermine what they are trying to achieve. In this way. most Recongregator Acolyte teams are subject to denial by their masters if they are caught fomenting rebellion or planning an assassination. with none to vouch for them, these Acolytes will die as heretics rather than as servants of the Golden Throne. Category:Imperial Faction